CRUX published the most recent demographics of the Catholic Church (here). While the Church was the central institution of the Western World for well over a millennium, it is now primarily based in the Southern hemisphere. Catholicism in the Western world failed to keep up with population growth. Furthermore, its numbers in the Western world are greatly inflated by immigrants from the third-world.

Overall, the Church claims 18% of the world’s population, or 1.3 billion people - about as many people as there are in China. Even if the estimate is exaggerated, that is a very large following.

CRUX compares the demographics of today’s Church with that of 1900. The differences are dramatic. They point out that in 1900, the Church “was not terribly different from what it had been during the Council of Trent in the 16th century” – that is, after the initial onslaught of Protestantism. CRUX reports that there were about 267 million Catholics in 1900, with over 200 million in Europe and North America – about 75%. There were about 1.5 billion people overall in 1900. The Church had about an 18% share, essentially the same as today.

In 2000, there were a total of 1.1 billion Catholics, with 350 million in Europe and North America – only 32%. In a century, Western Catholics grew only 75% - while the world population nearly quadrupled. There were 720 million Catholics in Latin America, Africa, and Asia - 65% of all Catholics. Latin America had over 400 million Catholics (36%, though CRUX calls it “almost half”). (This helps explain why Cardinal Bergoglio of Argentina was chosen to succeed Pope Benedict.)

CRUX cites projections that in 2025, “only one Catholic in five in the world will be a non-Hispanic Caucasian.” No wonder the Vatican lobbies to have the governments of those non-Hispanic Caucasians provide lots of foreign aid to the third-world.